How to buy flights to get maximum miles out of them?

AA's is a revenue based program, to get the maximum miles out of them buy the most expensive fares, the more you spend the more you earn. In addition, use your AA branded credit card to purchase the tickets to also earn loyalty points and bonus miles, make sure to buy directly from AA for the bonus credit card miles and loyalty points. There used to be a mileage cap per ticket but that is no longer the case, so the sky's the limit with how expensive your ticket is and how many miles you can earn.